


Infatuation

by meetmeatthecoda



Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Lizzington - Freeform, One-Shot, Romance, from tumblr, prompt, quote-based
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24249160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meetmeatthecoda/pseuds/meetmeatthecoda
Summary: A one-shot based on a Margaret Atwood quote, prompted by the lovely crisblcklst over on tumblr. Red visits an unconscious Lizzie in the hospital... and answers an important question. Vaguely set somewhere in Season 2. Lizzington.
Relationships: Elizabeth Keen/Raymond Reddington
Comments: 10
Kudos: 85





	Infatuation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cris_js](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cris_js/gifts).



**“You’re only a wish, a possibility, a phantom. Dare I say a hope?” - Margaret Atwood from “The Testaments”**

Red stands in the deserted hospital hallway, fidgeting uneasily on his feet, passing a small bouquet of flowers anxiously from hand to hand. He sighs impatiently, glancing down at his watch and willing Dembe to hurry because he doesn’t know how much longer he can wait –

The man himself finally rounds the corner.

“Is she asleep?” Red asks, not wasting a moment.

Dembe gives a long-suffering sigh but answers patiently enough.

“Yes, Raymond, she is asleep.”

Red sighs in relief.

“Thank you, my friend,” he says quietly, already moving past him around the corner, heading in the direction he came. “I won’t be long.”

Red strides down the hallway with purpose, this one busier with bustling nurses, until he reaches the door he’s been desperate to go through for the last few dragging hours. He reaches out to grab the handle – grasping it firmly with every intention of turning it immediately – before he stops short, riddled with renewed nerves, tingling and unpleasant.

What if she’s awake, sitting up and glaring at him with those accusatory eyes, blue and cold? Because he doesn’t think he can face her if –

No.

If Dembe said she’s asleep, then that’s what she is. At least for the time being, which is even more reason for him to quit standing here, frozen like a nervous, pathetic boy on a date.

Red bites down on his cheek, hard, and grips the flowers tightly, taking a deep breath as he forces himself to turn the handle and push open the door.

His eyes land on her the instant he can see inside, magnetically drawing his gaze as she so often does, looking frightfully pale and still with her eyes closed in exhausted sleep, as promised.

Lizzie.

(He’s such a coward.)

Red is suddenly very aware of all the chatter and noise from the hallway and, afraid of waking her, he moves fully into the room from where he was frozen in the doorway, and gently pulls the door shut.

He stands for a long moment at the foot of the bed, gazing at her, desperately grateful for the rare opportunity to drink in the sight of her unobserved. He stares at her face, framed by dark hair, in stark contrast to the white pillow under her head, with dark circles under her eyes and lips dry and cracked.

And a bright red scrape standing boldly on her cheek.

Red aches inside.

(She shouldn’t be here.)

Red carefully moves forward into the room, silent and with a watchful eye on Lizzie’s sleeping face, to hover over her bedside table. He works quickly but quietly, taking the empty vase from the table and carefully arranging his bouquet of flowers inside it, taking the time to make sure every individual flower is perfectly placed and equally visible. When he’s done, he places the vase in the middle of the table, where he hopes Lizzie may see it upon waking.

He steps back and turns to gaze at her sleeping form once more. His eyes drift over her scraped cheek again, before moving downwards to her fractured arm, laying at an odd angle by her side on the scratchy hospital blanket, and further down still to the shape of her stitched-up leg, unseen and cocooned under the blanket.

The sight takes him back to the fight they had only a few hours ago, the one in which she desperately asked him - yet again – who the hell she is to him and why she is so special. The one in which he refused to tell her anything - yet again - and she stormed out of his safe house in a frustrated rage, leaving him behind to sulk in his armchair, slumped and boneless…

…as she proceeded to get t-boned in the middle of an intersection three blocks from the safe house.

He winces at the fresh memory of the phone call. She’s all right, luckily, all relatively minor injuries, but that knowledge didn’t stop his heart from freezing when he heard the news and his cheeks from coloring now as he stands over her, guilt spreading through him anew at the reminder that this is all his fault.

(And when is it not?)

After the events that put her here, Red didn’t think she would want to see him, wouldn’t react well to a visit from him, no matter how many flowers he brought, so he sent Dembe in ahead of him to make sure she was sleeping.

Like the coward he is.

Red sighs and forces himself back to the present, here with Lizzie, fast asleep and resting, and thinks back to her question.

He licks his lips.

“You want so desperately to know who you are to me, Lizzie,” he murmurs to her unconscious form, soft and intimate. “It’s really quite simple…You’re only a wish, a possibility, a phantom.”

Lizzie’s lips twitch in her sleep.

His next words are barely audible, a mere whisper, as he raises a hand to gently sweep a lock of hair out of her face.

“Dare I say a hope?”

Red heaves a final sigh and reluctantly turns to leave.

* * *

Liz’s eyes snap open as the door clicks shut, her mind whirring as she processes what she just heard. After a long moment, she turns to look at the flowers he brought, sitting prettily on her bedside table. She sighs quietly, reaching out with her non-fractured arm to rub a soft petal between her fingertips, contemplating his peculiar choice of flowers.

His final words echo clearly in her mind.

_Dare I say a hope?_

(Then again, maybe not so peculiar.)

Because there they sit, vibrant in the beams of sunlight streaming in through the window.

Six red roses.


End file.
